Darrin Jackson Leads Cubs In 1 Category: Courage

April 05, 1988|By Bob Verdi, Chicago Tribune.

ATLANTA — Darrin Jackson was just minding his business Monday morning, grabbing a blast of fresh Georgia air in the visitors` dugout at Fulton County Stadium before the Cubs` workout. But then Rick Sutcliffe showed his face, and there went peace upon quiet. The big redhead`s verbal slingshots could bring a statue to its knees.

``Well, look at you,`` Sutcliffe said, glaring at Jackson. ``Jimmy Piersall tells everybody you`re our best defensive outfielder in spring training. So, what do you do? Yeah, you hit two cheap home runs in Oklahoma City. But you make two errors yesterday, too. Nice friend of the pitchers, you are. Better stop reading all your press clippings.``

Darrin Jackson laughed off the strafing, as he`ll be able to handle more serious matters, too. He`s not famous and he`s not wealthy, but he is alive and healthy, an unbeatable daily double. When the charter plane gets bumpy, when the team bus is 10 minutes late, when the post-game meal tastes like parboiled mystery meat, Jackson will be the Cub least likely to complain, and you can book it. Tuesday night is Opening Night, versus the Atlanta Braves, and while everybody`s just happy to be here, he underlines the sentence.

``Yeah,`` Jackson says, ``it does change your perspective, on what`s important and what`s little. Some things, you know, we just take for granted. So, yeah, I probably appreciate this moment more than most of the other guys.``

Jackson was performing for the Cubs` Triple-A affiliate in Iowa last August when he noticed a persistent pain from his groin area. He tried to put it out of his mind, but that only works so long, and when he was promoted to the big club in Chicago around Labor Day, the doctors wanted to have a look. They discovered a malignant growth, testicular carcinoma to be specific, and Jackson didn`t have to probe. They told him right then and there what it was, and what it might become.

``They told me it was cancer,`` he recalls, ``and they told me if I didn`t get it taken care of right away, I could die.``

When you`re a 24-year-old athlete, though, you develop these misguided notions about your indestructibility. So, without the blessing of physicians and before he got a handle on the situation, Jackson grabbed a bat and went off on a short road trip to New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis. He had four hits in five appearances, too, but the hurt wouldn`t go away and neither would the medics. When Jackson returned to Chicago, they removed the tumor, with no guarantees. There never are when cancer invades the body, even the body of an athlete in prime time.

But that wasn`t the difficult part. When Jackson went home to Los Angeles, he underwent a second surgery. His chest and stomach were opened up and 54 lymph nodes removed. The disease hadn`t spread, the results were negative, but the aftereffects stung. Jackson, under medication, didn`t eat for days and he dropped something like 25 pounds. Now, it was getting on toward winter, and how does a ballplayer trying to make it to Opening Day in the major leagues after seven seasons in the bushes respond from something like that? How does a rookie prospect recover his weight, his strength, without surrendering even this much?

``Strong will,`` says the Cubs` trainer, John Fierro. ``Darrin had a goal to make this team, and somehow or another he was going to make it.``

Without special treatment and without handshakes for heroism, thank you. Jackson will discuss the matter, provided you hold the badges and medals. Don Zimmer, the Cub manager, learned as much early in training camp. The players were limbering up one morning before calisthenics, and Jackson was among them, robust again if not finely tuned. His body fat, once about nine percent, was up to 14. Tone and strength and stamina were slow to arrive, but when Zimmer ambled over to Jackson`s side, there were no special dispensations.

``I told Darrin, `If you don`t feel up to doing any of these drills, if you can`t keep up, don`t worry about it,` `` the manager said. ``He looked at me and said, `I`m fine.` That was that. What a hell of a kid he is.``

With just a couple of days left before the Cubs broke camp, Darrin was hanging in there, a reserve outfielder vying for a spot on the 24-man roster. His wife, Darlene, could contain herself no more. She decorated a large congratulatory placard for her husband, balloons and all. But then, front-office boss Jim Frey started making a series of deals. Nothing

earthshaking, mind you, but when you`re an irregular on a sixth-place squad eternally in quest of help, security is not a divine right. Darlene Jackson put the card away. The party never happened.

``Talk about a strong woman,`` Darrin Jackson says. ``You know, I never really got depressed during that whole thing, never thought about whether it was still there after two operations. And one of the reasons I was able to be the way I was was because of Darlene. She never let on how scared she was, not until after I finally started getting better. Then I found out. She`s driving to Chicago now, to meet me there when the team comes home. Maybe we`ll celebrate a little bit then.``

There`s a 10-inch scar bisecting Darrin Jackson`s midsection, but Tuesday night, he`ll be covering it up just the way he wanted to, with a Cub uniform. Darlene, get those balloons ready.